"Solemn Thought" is an old hymn in A minor. Several authors of shape-note hymnals have claimed authorship including F. Price, Ananias Davisson and James P. Carrell. James P. Carrell was a farmer, Methodist minister and county clerk in Lebanon, Russell County, Virginia. He was author of Songs of Zion (1821) and co-author of Virginia Harmony (1831). Several of his songs were printed in Kentucky Harmony and its supplements. The form is similar to "Captain Kidd" which is found in both "hymn form" and secular "ballad form". William Walker stated that he learned it when he was three years old (in 1812). The song also appears in Ingalls' Christian Harmony (1805). It was printed in Jackson's Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (1937).